27.

“What does Xillian mean?” Vivian asked. She found herself surprised to hear the words leave her lips. While she wanted to ask the question, her entire body felt foriegn to her and she wasn’t expecting it to actually listen to her.

Rin glanced away from the dead man, to her. His watery blue eyes blinked before looking away again.

“Nothing.” He paused. “That’s a lie. It roughly translates to, ‘Son of Hope.’”

“Your title?”

“My old name.”

“Oh.”

“If you want to save your friend, you’ll have to act quickly.”

Vivian jolted. Alexis. In the chaos, she had forgotten about Alexis. She turned toward her but, to her surprise, Nyx already crouched next to her, busily applying gauze across her body. Vivian had no idea where the gauze emerged from, Nyx must have had rolls of it stashed on her person at all times.

“What can I do?” Vivian asked.

“Nothing,” Nyx replied without looking up.

“We should bring her down into Rin’s garden.”

“No.” Nyx glared at her. “She must not be moved. Likely will kill her outright.”

“But if you stay up here someone could find you.”

Nyx gave no response other than to continue her bandaging.

“Vivian,” Rin said. “If my plan works, there won’t be any danger to them. Come.”

With a final look back at her friends, illuminated by Rin’s flickering lantern fallen beside the charred remains of his brother, Vivian followed after him.

He lifted up the weathered wooden trapdoor and guided her to the ladder. They descended into the darkness below.

Her foot struck the ground unexpectedly. She groped around in the dark, grabbing Rin’s shoulder to orientate herself. He flinched under her touch. As her eyes adjusted she noted that Rin faintly glowed. A beacon in the all-consuming darkness that surrounded them.

He stepped forward, down the hall. They emerged in the garden, Rin’s sanctuary. Moonbeams pierced down from above, softly illuminating the heavyset tree along with the plants sprouting up all around it. Somehow, it looked even more brimming with life than she’d last seen it. Moss covered every inch of the walls, leaving no sign of the stone.

Tension visibly left Rin’s body as he set a hand on the tree. He closed his eyes, as if listening to music only audible to him.

For a moment, everything stood perfectly still. A serene painting of beauty in the night of horror.

“What do you need me to do?” Vivian asked. “How can I save the island?”

Rin broke away from the tree, sapphire eyes downcast.

“Put your hand on the tree,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s a Tree of Life, one of the only ones left in existence. They used to be native in my homeland. Long ago.”

“And it can help us?”

“Yes.”

Vivian stepped forward and put her hand on the bark of the tree. She expected some revelation or burst of power to surge within her, but was disappointed. Rough and a bit sticky with sap, it felt like bark. Just normal tree bark.

Then a hand grabbed the back of her neck. A freezing wave of chills rushed from the point of contact down her spine and up into her head. It remained there, echoing through her skull. Her bones stiffened together, unmoving.

Rin then set his other hand on the bark.

Vivian collapsed at the foot of the tree. The roots entangled her body, vaguely she realized she wanted to scream, shout, move but she felt so tired. And the tree wrapped around her like a blanket. It brought her back to her previous life, back when everything felt so simple. No Mystics, no Naturals, no death. Just her, her mother, and brother.

Before her friends too, a part of the back of her mind reminded her, before Owen, Alexis, Nyx, Rin, or Lynn. But that part of her was quiet, easily ignored, as she drifted off into bliss.